The Creditor

It was at that time that one of my advisers called me to inform me that a diplomat from an African country wanted to see me. After verifying the information and above all out of curiosity, I accepted the meeting. I decided on the place, the day, and the time. The place, the Hôtel de Paris in Monaco, the day, a Tuesday, the time, 3:00 pm. My meetings never take place before 2:00 pm because in the morning I sleep. My nights are spent going around the world by telephone. I travel through the various time zones until six or seven in the morning. Fortunately for me, I love the night. There I was, in place in my suite at the Hôtel de Paris, waiting for this diplomat. I have no idea what he wants to discuss, but I am curious. 2:50 pm, the head of my security informs me that the diplomat in question has arrived but apparently he does not go unnoticed. Indeed, he arrives at the wheel of a Smart car with consular plates which he parks in front of the hotel steps.

At last, the casino square begins to sparkle with all its lights. What could be more boring and predictable than parking a Rolls or a Ferrari on this square. But a Smart, very smart of him. So let us return to his much-noticed arrival. Out of the Smart in question stepped a man with white skin in a black robe and weighing close to 150 kilos. Our meeting goes wonderfully well. He is very pleasant and very warm. We talk of everything and nothing and finally I ask him the question. Why do you want to see me? His answer was as concise as my question. Our President needs you. Needs me? Yes, needs your organization, needs your advice and we agree to issue you debt instruments.

Apparently, they knew me well. One of my partners in South America was a close friend of his President and thanks to him, the President had been able to observe my performances, in particular those which had made certain people very, very rich. The President governs a small country in Africa, small in size but great in potential. Its location is also favorable to the territorial expansion of tourism. Rich in its positioning, and above all its President eager to get rich fast, very fast. Their initial proposal did not suit me. I propose to my diplomat to see him again a week later, to the day, same time, same place, with "my" proposal.

The meeting is kept and we meet again as planned. Same Smart, same much-noticed arrival. After talking of everything and nothing, I submit my proposal to him. It is very simple. It fits on two pages. He reads it, looks at me and says. "You are pushing it a little, I think we can come to an agreement, but not on all your conditions". Relieved, I thank him for having traveled again, wish him a safe return and ask him to thank his President for the honor he did me in having chosen me to assist him in his presidential duties. "Not so fast" he replied, "I am calling the President". "I am calling the President"? Is he joking? One does not call a President from a suite at the Hôtel de Paris to negotiate a state contract, and well yes, one does call a President from a suite at the Hôtel de Paris to negotiate a state contract. I learn my first governmental lesson.

They speak to each other, he asks me if I want to speak to the President. I refuse. He then decides to leave the suite for a moment to talk with him in private. So I remain alone in this suite. I have no idea what they might be saying to each other. What does one say to a President at moments like these? My experience so far does not give me the answer. The interruption was very short. He returns with a broad smile. "My congratulations, your proposal is accepted". And that is how one gains access to the highest level of the state. All it takes is a fine suite at the Hôtel de Paris, a Smart, and above all a good diplomat who carries weight, a great deal of weight.

There I was, preparing my entry into the real world of finance. My contract begins a few weeks before 11 September 2001. I am far from expecting what was about to happen. In the process, a friend of my diplomat contacts me and offers me a similar contract with another country. After a short interview with its President, I decide to accept it. My wife has just entered her ninth month of pregnancy and we are preparing to welcome our daughter. The events of 11 September were a veritable apocalypse. On 24 September 2001, my daughter is born. A superb baby full of life and full of cries. Life begins to beat again. I am happy.

One day in November 2001, I receive a call from my state contact in the first country with which I have agreements. He asks me to meet him. Generally, all communications take place by secure telephone channels. This time the meeting takes place in a private villa on the Côte d'Azur. I am asked to facilitate a contract that was apparently already under negotiation between a private American group, very close to its government, and the country in question. This contract concerned the provision, in exchange for very substantial funds, of part of their territory to host several tens of thousands of soldiers who were coming to position themselves in their country. The negotiation was concluded very quickly. As planned, the soldiers arrive.

My analysis of what happened on 11 September was now different from the one I had thought I understood through the media, because I now understood how the affairs of a government are negotiated. I learn very quickly the workings of these infernal machines that govern us. I must now face a reality that becomes unbearable to live with, but too late, I had committed myself and I will honor my commitments. What I do with the acquired data will remain my sole and exclusive property, secured in my database.

I now become someone indispensable, because I am the only one to master all the new structures in place, without being supposed to know them, including mastering all the sensitive information to which very few have access. Some of this information can make or break certain governments. The speed at which the negotiations pile up is dizzying. I negotiate on behalf of, I decide on behalf of, I invest on behalf of, ultimately I run a large part of the economy of the two countries. A third country approaches me to assist and advise them.

It is impossible for a taxpayer to audit their government regarding their tax contribution for humanitarian purposes. They will be told that the humanitarian funds sent to poor countries cannot be audited for lack of structure on the ground. A lack of a well-structured structure! On the other hand, this same government can send you a tax inspector, who is paid by your taxes, and consequently who works for you, to audit you at any moment.

The functioning of the governmental structure works perfectly. It is founded on intimidation. Politicians will make you believe anything. I know very few politicians whom I respect. Most are mere puppets who care nothing at all about the citizens and who are there solely to satisfy their personal ambitions and to satisfy their egos. A large majority of Presidents in office do nothing but carry out orders that "come from elsewhere".

Very often, at the taxpayers' expense, a government unofficially invites the family and entourage of a foreign president to spend their holidays on its territory. For your information, such an invitation represents costs amounting to more than 50,000 euros per day and some of these invitations can extend for a month or more. It is not uncommon for the costs incurred for a one-month stay to amount to more than two million euros. These costs are paid in full by the taxpayers but bring them nothing in return.

The anonymity of the representatives of the countries I advise is the law. Here is an anecdote that illustrates well the extent of my dealings with my interlocutors. I had a meeting scheduled with one of the official representatives of one of the countries I advise, to hand him very precise instructions for his President. The meeting takes place in a luxury hotel in Cannes. Once the meeting was over, I let the representative leave and I wait a few minutes to leave the premises myself. I pass him in the hotel lobby but we will exchange no glance.

Three days later, the President in question announced through a press conference the new economic measures he had decided upon for a promising future for his country. The President in question had a good memory because he had been able to retain, down to the last comma, all the instructions that had been provided to him three days earlier.

During the summer periods, I privately host several high dignitaries from foreign countries. They spend several weeks on the Côte d'Azur. Some go to private residences, one in particular at Cap Martin in the south of France, others stay in luxury hotels or on yachts rented by the week.

During a stay when I had invited the family of an African President, I receive a call from his head of protocol asking me to join the President on his boat for a meeting. At 3:00 pm, a vessel picks me up at the little port of Villefranche to take me to the yacht where my high dignitary was. The President was waiting for me on the deck and received me with open arms. After a strong embrace, he invited me to join the lounge where another person was already present. He introduces him to me. This person was an American businessman of Russian origin. Apparently, this man wanted to invest large sums in the country in question.

I listened to him but above all I tried to understand why the President was going against our agreements, namely that he had committed never to hold business meetings without first having my agreement. The businessman shared his intentions with me but above all insisted on the fact that his involvement in the country would bring a great deal to the President. Indeed, his proposal brought a great deal to the President but so little to his population. When he had finished his presentation, this businessman asked me whether I could support his request with the people who would be responsible for signing such an agreement.

There was a silence, a very long silence in that lounge. We were three in that lounge but so numerous in my head. I heard the starving cries of all those children surviving in that country in question. I also heard the weeping of those mothers prostrate before the bodies of their children, dead from hunger, dead from everything. I decided to answer him by asking him a question. Do you have children, I asked him? Surprised by my question, he answered nervously that he did. How can one answer nervously to such a simple question? I then resumed the conversation by telling him that the President's priority was not his own but rather that of his country.

The President fell silent. The businessman had nothing more to say. It was time for me to take my leave, wishing him an excellent day aboard this magnificent yacht, which by the way had been rented at my expense. The next day I received a written note from the President which read "Excellent meeting and thank you again for your generosity".

I am called upon to negotiate the "impossible deals" and to renegotiate the "existing deals". I develop a very closed core of private advisers who assist me at the highest level in solving certain problems. My reputation allows me certain excesses. My power is incontestable. I am everywhere and nowhere at once. I govern without governing and I decide without deciding. My debt instruments allow me to gain access to the most powerful companies. My striking power becomes dazzling but worrying for some. The first to be worried by my striking power are those who first subscribed to this principle of debt. Information is master on board. I supply the information, they execute it. All the information remains in a database to which I am the only one to have access.

The governmental system is run by two structures quite distinct from one another. The first structure is none other than the one that appears in everyone's eyes. Let us refer to the latter as the official government. The one you vote for, the one everyone knows and can have access to. It is found everywhere. It is omnipresent in the media, on the internet, in speeches, and above all in your wallets. It is the world of fine speeches, of official motorcades, in short, the government in all its splendour as one wishes to parade it.

The second structure is quite different, 180 degrees the opposite. I will refer to it as the unofficial government. There, one forgets the fine speeches and the official motorcades, but it remains forever anchored in your wallets. Very few people have access to it and all those who run these structures generally hold no official position within the government. It is they who govern, and it is they who make the decisions. A world that is utterly opaque and unknown to the general public and yet a very real world. A world utterly corrupt, without the slightest qualm for anyone.

A handful of individuals utterly unknown to the media master these gigantic structures. One negotiates on behalf of, one decides on behalf of, and one collects on behalf of. One plans crises to create unfortunate events in the same way that a company would open a loss-making subsidiary to pay less tax, with the sole difference that here it is to collect more tax. One ensures that poor countries remain poor because their Machiavellian structure is based on the principle that rich countries can only grow richer if poor countries grow poorer.

It sometimes happens that confrontations will be generated in certain countries among the people of a region. If necessary, weapons will be supplied to part of its population to destabilize a very particular region, which will thus allow a similar deal to be concluded in another region more favorable to profit. Some Presidents even have a price. For example, one can buy oneself a country to facilitate certain transactions, especially if these require an irrefutable banking structure. Several banks are available for this purpose but very few will have access to this network even if you can afford to allocate some thirty million euros a year to the President in office. That is the average price of a crooked President in certain countries. There is a real paradox with the African continent, which remains forever poor despite all the financial and humanitarian aid granted to it.

At the same time, I am looking for a spiritual state icon for the program. The choice is easy, the Dalai Lama. A meeting is therefore arranged for 26 July 2008 and the venue of our meeting will be in Aspen, Colorado, in the United States. I accept the meeting even though he is on an official visit in the country. My meeting with him is scheduled at the same time as he is meeting the 2008 presidential candidates. My arrival was very much noticed by the American secret services. Our meeting was exceptional. It was he himself who was waiting for me and who opened the door to welcome me. He lets me know that he would be happy to be part of my program and asks me to meet his prime minister at the time, Samdhong Rinpoche, with whom I hit it off very quickly. I propose to invite him for a few days to Beverly Hills where we can discuss the details of my offer at our leisure.

Why did I decide to write a book? My wife has a great deal to do with it, I must admit. Many close friends also suggested the idea to me. Larry King on several occasions advised me to write my biography. A CNN team even came to spend a whole afternoon at my Beverly Hills residence to try to capture my character better, although it was understood that no journalistic leak would result from our meeting.

I decide to meet certain icons from different walks of life to invite them to join me in my program, which is a veritable race against the clock for life. Until now my one and only network of collaboration and communication has remained very closed. I get to know stars. I invite left and right. To name but a few, Stevie Wonder, who sings Happy Birthday To You to my younger daughter at my residence. I invite Mike Tyson with his family to spend several days in the mountains of Utah. Every Monday I invite Larry King to lunch at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I become friends with the Black Eyed Peas, and more particularly with Will I Am. A dinner is organized for me where I dine with Al Pacino. A memorable evening. At the end of the meal, we are sitting face to face, he looks me straight in the eyes and says "I have played many roles of people like you, I knew they existed but this is the first time I have met one".

Many people gravitated around Jacques Médecin. They were all there wanting to be near him, wanting to speak to him, wanting to be seen with him, to be photographed with him. Christian Estrosi was one of those people. What an era, even Prince Rainier avoided him because perhaps, beside him, he felt powerless? Jacques was the king of Nice and Nice had built its border walls with France. Too powerful Jacques, too intelligent, too genuine, too much charisma, too much of too much.

He had to be eliminated and that is exactly what happened. Jacques's downfall was commissioned by the Mitterrand government and it was Charasse who was the executor of his descent into hell. The weak who gather together in numbers to bring down the beast to be slaughtered. It was literally a death sentence for Jacques because he died of it. I remember that one day Jacques said to me, "I am in a boxing ring where my opponent has put lead in his gloves. I give up". It was also a very important stage of my life because I was a witness to the infernal machine of political corruption. What a lesson that would serve me at the highest level a few years after his death.

How many times have I heard this phrase come out of the mouths of the French, "I am no more unhappy than anyone else". I address all those who lead our country. Do you not think that such a phrase is quite representative of a deep malaise in our country? "No more unhappy", is it still good to live in France? Stop making the taxpayers pay for your incompetence at governing.

When you choose a bank to invest your capital, you choose a banking institution that can bring you a large return. The money of your taxes is your foremost capital, why entrust it to politicians and not to true finance professionals?

Although the followers of the philosophical school of Diogenes illustrate a courageous notion of cynicism. Cynicism is a behavior that will bring you nothing but conflict. If the pursuit of conflict is predominant in your character, it will be interesting to note that you are not alone in having it. Many people are cynical because it gives them a false idea of control. Starting a conflict will generally put you in a position of strength, at least that is what you think. In reality, this position of strength is nothing but a position of weakness, because it is not aggressiveness that will give you the power to change things or to alter a situation. Perhaps for a brief moment this aggressiveness will give you a semblance of authority, but in the medium term it will prove ineffective. Benevolence, on the other hand, is the winning horse.

They have proven that they do not have the competence required to manage the economy of our country. It would be wise to consider entrusting the running of the state to others than politicians. Have you noticed that the economy of our country has never been without an economic crisis, and that for all time. Whatever the political parties, whatever the Heads of State in place. One common point lies in this system of crisis. It is always politicians who govern.